It is customary to manually wrap pantyhose into individual envelopes after an inspection process during which sections of the pantyhose may be stretched out over wire frames. The manual process includes manual folding of the hose into the envelope. A pantyhose is of an irregular shape comprising two individual leg sections joined to a common panty section.
The prior art includes machinery for enclosing articles in open bags which are supplied on a continuous strip fed from a roll, with the loaded bag automatically heat sealed and detached from the feed strip. However, to load any irregular shaped article such as a pantyhose into such bags has customarily required the use of manual labor or of machinery fitted with cumbersome arms that fold the textile article along various hinge axes.